Oct. 24: The Evolution of LGBTQ+ Young Adult Lit: From Sad-Eyed Loners to Superheroes

Discover exciting trends in young adult literature, expand your reading list, and play a trivia game with prizes! Christine Jenkins, co-author of Representing the Rainbow in Young Adult Literature, will take you on a whirlwind tour of five decades of this exciting and now booming genre. Author Rachel Gold will read from the new edition of her groundbreaking novel, Being Emily, and explore the future of YA literature with queer and trans content. Reception to follow. Books will be for sale and authors will be available for signing!READ MORE

Come see me in September if you’re near Atlanta; Portsmouth, NH; Boston; or St. Cloud, MN!

Sept. 1: AJC Decatur Book Festival

“Who Even Am I?” panel, Saturday, 10:00-10:45 YA Stage — Adolescence is a time for figuring out big things, including who you are. But how do you do that when your whole world is turned upside down? Details here.READ MORE

Below you’ll find a PDF of the presentation “Gender in 50 Min or Less” that I delivered at the Golden Crown Literary Society annual convention in early July. I’ve also tried to list most of the papers, articles and books that I read while thinking about my gender presentation.

I probably forgot some resources, so this list might expand later. At some point I hope to add my notes or a link to the video if it’s public (apologies to people who weren’t at the conference if the PDF doesn’t entirely make sense without the notes).

Thanks to the Golden Crown board for inviting me to speak, and to my audience for laughing at all my jokes!READ MORE

We’re less than two weeks to the launch of the new edition of Being Emily! I’m super excited. I got to add about 25% more content to the original story, plus there’s a whole new epilogue (set 10 years after the original story), and there’s a great intro.

Editing and rewriting parts of a book that’s already published was a lot harder than I expected. I wanted to keep everything that readers have loved and add new material in a way that didn’t clash with the original.READ MORE

QUEER YA with Second Story & Queer Voices — Oct. 8 @ 2 p.m.

Second Story Reading Series, in collaboration with Queer Voices Reading Series, will host a QUEER YA event on Sunday, October 8th at 2pm at The Loft Literary Center. The event will feature readings by local LGBTQ authors, a panel discussion, and book sales by Addendum Books. Author Molly Beth Griffin (Silhouette of a Sparrow) will read from Either/Or, a young adult novel in progress, as part of a 2017 Minnesota Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant.

Boneshaker Books: Queer Your Reading — Sept. 15

I really wanted to post a video of me reading chapters 1 & 2 for launch day, but I woke up with some kind of funky virus. I am just not going to look as happy on video as I’d like. So bear with me and I’ll update later this week with the live reading.

Yesterday I had the privilege of being invited to speak at Macalester College’s 2017 Lavender Graduation ceremony. Yes, my alma mater is so cool that they have a graduation just for the LGBTQIA+ students — and there are so many graduating queer and trans students that they had to curl all the way around the stage. There were more students standing up in that graduation ceremony than there were in the entire queer and trans student group when I was at Mac.

It was an emotional and beautiful ceremony with a lot of great speakers. But I don’t have the text of what they said, so here’s what I said to the LGBTQIA+ graduating class of 2017:READ MORE

With the launch of Nico & Tucker happening mid-May, I decided it was time for a haircut and author photos that more accurately represent me. You can see my current photo on the home page of this site or the about page. It’s a really good photo! And it rocks my super-Jewish hair. But it also makes me look very “woman.” I still plan to use that one any time I need to infiltrate a bastion of conservativeness.

But now I get to rock a new photo! I enlisted the very expert help of Anna Min from Min Enterprises Photography. Her event photography has included a lot of high profile local queer and trans events, so I figured we’d easily be on the same page about the photo I was looking for. We had a fun time trying different locations in her building. From that set of photos there are three that would work well as author photos.READ MORE